Judge in cop-killing case has presided over several major trials

SHE IS GIVEN to slipping into a Southern drawl when speaking from the bench.

"Child, you were so gracious," Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes told a woman during jury selection recently. "Thank you for letting us ask so many questions."

"God bless you, baby, really," she told another potential juror, after learning that he had been raised with 10 siblings.

Later that day, the judge playfully chided defense attorneys for rejecting a blunt-spoken woman who radiated law-and-order.

"I liked her," said Hughes, 54. "She was straightforward and direct. You all just want jurors that you can B.S."

Hughes, intermittently funny and fiery, typically is courteous to defendants but does not hesitate to tongue-lash the remorseless after they've been convicted.

During 15 years as an elected Common Pleas Court judge, she has presided over a sordid parade of heartbreak in the form of high-profile murder trials.

The judge, ex-wife of state Sen. Vincent Hughes, with whom she has a son, first made headlines after a run-in with police on the Vine Expressway in 1993.

She told the Daily News then that she had been mistreated after police had to break a window to get her out of her Jeep.

Now, Hughes is back in the spotlight with testimony expected to begin today in the trial of Eric Deshann Floyd, 35, and Levon Terrell Warner, 41, charged with first-degree murder in the May 2008 slaying of Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski. If convicted, they could get death sentences.

Floyd rocked jury selection June 9, when he twice sucker-punched one of his court-appointed attorneys, William Bowe.

Hughes ordered extra courtroom security and banished the out-of-control defendant to a holding cell, where he watches the trial on a TV monitor.

"The administration of justice will not be interrupted nor will attempts to interrupt it be tolerated," Hughes said sternly, upon resuming jury selection two days later.

The cop-killing case is just the latest in a series of high-profile trials that Hughes has handled.

She also presided over the trial of William J. Barnes, acquitted by a jury this year of causing the 2007 death of a cop he shot and paralyzed in 1966; a 2005 Fishtown murder trial that resulted in three teenagers' being sentenced to life in prison; and the case of Miriam White, who, at age 11 in 1999, became the youngest person in Philadelphia ever charged with murder.

The District Attorney's Office tried unsuccessfully to get Hughes kicked off that case after accusing her of being sympathetic to White, who plunged a knife into the heart of a stranger on a South Philly sidewalk.

In 2002, Hughes made a ruling that inadvertently led to tragedy during a case that received no media coverage. After a one-day, nonjury trial, Hughes acquitted a 19-year-old named Solomon Montgomery of shooting and robbery charges.

After hearing the 19-year-old victim recount how Montgomery allegedly put a gun in his mouth before shooting him in the arm, Hughes concluded that the evidence was not convincing enough.

Four years after that acquittal, Montgomery fatally shot Philadelphia Police Officer Gary Skerski during the holdup of a Frankford bar. He pleaded guilty and is serving life without parole.

Fraternal Order of Police President John McNesby would not comment on the 2002 case, saying that he was not aware of it.

Of Hughes he said: "From what I've seen, she's outstanding. She's compassionate. She's detail-oriented and she takes the time to address the family members - which she doesn't have to do. She takes that extra step."

Attempts to interview the Virginia-born judge, who earns $161,850 a year, were not successful.

A graduate of the University of Virginia and Georgetown University Law Center, Hughes got generally favorable marks from lawyers who responded to the Philadelphia Bar Association's 2005 Judicial Evaluation Retention Poll.

When asked if she is efficient and industrious, 88 percent of lawyers said that she was; 84.8 percent said that she was qualified.

"In my mind, she makes every attempt to be fair right down the middle - there's no question about that," said Philadelphia defense attorney Nino V. Tinari, who added: "She's of course very attractive, and she has the ability to express herself in a very, very flamboyant way."

Defense attorney Douglas L. Dolfman said that, while Hughes is a "strict judge," she also is welcoming to all who enter her courtroom.

"She really works hard at trying to run her courtroom in a very effective and efficient manner," Dolfman said.

Hughes does have her detractors. A lawyer who asked that his name not be used said that she regularly favors prosecutors over defense attorneys.

In the Miriam White case, however, it was prosecutors who accused Hughes of being biased in the girl's favor, noting that during a hearing she told White that she had a "gorgeous smile" and had promised to try to have pizza delivered to her in jail.

Among Hughes' professional endeavors before becoming a judge were running her own law firm and being a founding officer of the African American Chamber of Commerce of Philadelphia.

It was in those pre-judge years - in April 1993 - that Hughes made headlines for the first time.

After the young lawyer was stopped by a police officer on the Vine Expressway, tempers flared. Hughes, believing that the officer was a fake cop, refused to turn over her identification and called her husband, Vincent Hughes, who at the time was a state representative.

The officer, William Kozempel Jr., pointed his gun at Hughes and ordered her out of her Jeep. She resisted until another officer broke a window to extract and arrest her.

No charges were filed, and a month later Hughes told the Daily News that she had been mistreated.

"The real issue is that nobody should be treated as I was treated," she said then.

During this month's jury selection in the Liczbinski murder trial, Hughes and the attorneys spent nearly three weeks conducting interviews to find 12 people willing to consider imposing the death penalty.

One of the many ambivalent potential jurors, a retired pipe-fitter, told Hughes that he would not be comfortable standing up in court to affirm a death sentence because he'd worry what others would think of him.

"I don't care if people agree with me or not," responded Hughes, in full Southern mode. "I care if they think I am fair.

"The real deal is, this whole process is uncomfortable. That's the reality."